By IANS
Mexico City, Oct 26 (IANS) The toll in an offshore oilrig collision Wednesday in the southern Gulf of Mexico has risen to 19, owner of the oil field state-run Pemex said.
Pemex chief Jesus Reyes-Heroles told a senate panel Thursday that high seas and strong winds of up to 130 kmph had apparently caused the collision between the Kab 101 light-production rig and the Usumacinta drilling platform, Spanish news agency EFE reported Friday.
He admitted that the state run firm had problems with maintenance and that there were safety lapses.
The accident, which resulted in an oil spill in the Gulf, had occurred 32 km off the port of Dos Bocas in the southwestern state of Tabasco.
The company said its personnel and the Mexican navy were continuing a search operation for four missing workers, who were among the 86 working on the rig at the time of the accident.
Pemex said oil company technicians were working to repair the damaged valve and stop the leak of oil into the Gulf and added that it was trying to “contain the zone of the spill”.
Mexico’s Environment Secretary Juan Rafael Elvira said it was too soon to evaluate the environmental damage from the accident or to estimate the amount of oil spill and gas leak.
President Felipe Calderon, who cancelled his official schedule to travel to the region to meet survivors in the hospital and oversee rescue efforts, has expressed his condolences to the families of the workers killed in the accident.
The accident is the worst to befall the oil giant at sea since November 1998, when two of the company’s helicopters collided mid-air off the Campeche coast, killing all 22 people on board both aircraft.
Pemex is one of the world’s largest oil companies and has been responsible for making Mexico the fifth largest oil-exporting nation.
–Indo-Asian News Service